


like that

by YourPalYourBuddy



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Drunk confessions, Getting Together, M/M, One Shot, Pining, i should be asleep tbh, short and sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:41:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21968743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy
Summary: The most frustrating thing about Derek Nurse is how earnest he is. About even the most mundane things too, like rhapsodizing about the frost pattern on their window before the sun comes up, or about how the graffiti on the LAX team’s garage door is somehow beautiful in the overlap, or now, when he’s drunk off his ass and touching every single freckle on Dex’s cheeks and forehead and chin. And neck.“What’re you doing,” Dex says, catching one of Nursey’s hands.“Counting,” Nursey slurs. “You got so many ‘n they’re all so good on you.”__________________________NurseyDex during & after a kegster. Dex's POV :)
Relationships: Derek "Nursey" Nurse/William "Dex" Poindexter
Comments: 34
Kudos: 263





	like that

________________________

The most frustrating thing about Derek Nurse is how earnest he is. About even the most mundane things too, like rhapsodizing about the frost pattern on their window before the sun comes up, or about how the graffiti on the LAX team’s garage door is somehow beautiful in the overlap, or now, when he’s drunk off his ass and touching every single freckle on Dex’s cheeks and forehead and chin. And neck. 

“What’re you doing,” Dex says, catching one of Nursey’s hands. 

“Counting,” Nursey slurs. “You got so many ‘n they’re all so good on you.”

Nursey’s eyes are wide and serious and too pretty to be looking at him like that. Dex drops his hand. And sucks in a breath, sudden and painful; Nursey plants those fingers just underneath Dex’s collarbone. It’s not a soft touch but it’s not painful either. It’s anchoring almost, as if Nursey was on Dex Patrol instead of the other way around. It feels like safe harbor.

Somewhere behind them someone shouts out a challenge for beer pong and the music swells, beating underneath Dex’s shoes, and Nursey isn’t moving. He rubs the neck of Dex’s shirt between his forefinger and thumb.

“How much water have you had?” Dex asks. Nursey’s hand is so warm; he can feel it straight through to his bones. 

Nursey looks at him sideways. “Why.”

“You gotta sober up, Nurse.” Dex covers Nursey’s wrist and pulls gently. Nursey follows without arguing, bouncing off people left and right as Dex tows him to the kitchen. Dex’s throat is dry. 

“I don’t wanna,” Nursey says. He flings his arms out wide and almost knocks a cup out of Dex’s grasp. “I’m flying, Dexy.”

“You’re flying too high.” Nursey pouts. Dex presses the water cup into his free hand and Nursey makes a face at it, then at him. “You’re drunk.”

Nursey takes a sip. “I’m drunk on you all the time,” he mumbles. “Nothing new.”

This is it, here. This is what Dex means. It’s a mess of a sentence but it’s earnest, he’s drunk as fuck but he means it. It’s something in his face when he says  _ all the time, _ something in his voice in the quieter  _ nothing new. _ Something in how his hand is back on Dex’s chest. If Dex is lucky — which he isn’t, given how tonight’s going — he’s too drunk to feel how fast his heart is beating. 

Dex says, “You’re cut off.” It’s all he can think to say.

“I’m done anyway.” Nursey sets the cup down and trips and Dex catches him without thinking about it. Nursey pats his face clumsily. “My knight in shining knitwear,” he says.

“You’re a walking safety hazard.”

“Feeling pretty safe with you here,” Nursey says, yawning, and Dex closes his eyes for a second to scream internally. 

“Let’s get you to bed, okay?”

Nursey mumbles something that would probably sound like  _ let’s get dinner first ‘n then I’m all yours _ if Dex let himself hear it properly. He focuses instead on navigating the party without either of them falling. It’s thinned out some in the last few minutes, which makes it easier, but Nursey apparently wants to fall asleep standing up, which makes it much harder.

He gets them up the stairs close to five minutes after they started out. The music is much quieter even a floor up; he makes a note to ask Bitty if it’s always been like this or if that’s just him being sleep deprived or if it’s just Nursey snoring. Possible all three are true. 

Dex checks their beds to make sure no one ralphed in their room like Shitty always says is going to happen and, satisfied, peels off his sweater and jeans and tosses them both in his chair. He rubs his eyes. 

“Dexy?”

Nursey sounds softer than usual. He’s normally louder when he’s drunk. “Nurse?”

“I can’t get up the ladder.”

Dex turns toward him. “What?”

“The ladder,” he repeats. Dex opens his mouth to say something like  _ you’re kidding _ but stops when he sees the look on his face. Nursey doesn’t usually look this fragile when he’s drunk, either. “I can’t get up.”

“It’s okay,” Dex says. He clears his throat, cursing them both under his breath. “We can share mine, okay?”

“We aren’t gonna fit.”

“Ransom and Holster did this all the time,” Dex says lightly. Nursey still looks like he’s gonna fall apart if he’s looked at wrong. He must be very drunk; Chowder always swears that Nursey gets emotional when he’s on Patrol, but Dex has never seen him this upset before.

“We can’t,” Nursey says. “You don’t like me like that.”

“Of course I do.” Dex pulls on a soft shirt and shorts, glances at Nursey, and huffs. He reaches up for Nursey’s pillow and tosses it at him. “C’mon, I’m not gonna bite you.”

Nursey doesn’t catch it. He stoops to pick it up and loses his balance, sitting down hard. He hugs the pillow tight. 

“I’m okay here,” he says. “You don’t like me like that.”

This is — okay. This is one of drunk Nursey’s most annoying habits. He gets in a loop that’s impossible to shake free of unless whomever he’s talking to guesses what he means. Dex isn’t usually the one they call unless he’s rambling about lobsters or fishing or Maine. There’s only so many things  _ you don’t like me like that _ can mean, but none of them are meanings Dex is prepared to deal with at the moment. A too large part of him wants Nursey’s hand back on his chest.

“I don’t like you like what,” Dex says.

Nursey is too open all the time but especially right now, sitting on their rug and staring at his pillow like it’s the only thing keeping him on the ground. Dex nearly closes his eyes against it. 

“Like  _ that,” _ Nursey says. “Like, ‘needing to count your freckles’  _ like _ you. ‘Wanting my hand on your skin’  _ like _ you.”

Dex’s pulse is a crashing roar inside his head. Nursey doesn’t sound very drunk anymore. It’s too late, it’s been too long of a day to talk about this now. If they talk about this now Dex is going to have to say something true, something about wanting his hands on him, and it’s too much of a thing to make sense of right now.

“I—” he starts, then stops.

Nursey meets Dex’s gaze levelly. “You don’t have to say anything,” he says quietly. “I just thought, you know. You probably wouldn’t want me there, if you knew.”

“I don’t wanna talk about this,” Dex says. Nursey nods, sucking in his bottom lip, and Dex groans. “No I meant, it’s too late to do this well, right now isn’t the time. Get up here.”

Nursey doesn’t move. “What’re you saying?”

Dex tugs on a piece of his hair until it hurts enough to keep him in this moment. This is too important to mess up. “I’m saying it’s late and you’re tipsy and I don’t have the words to tell you how I feel around you, or that when you touch me it’s like sparks on my skin, and I really, really think you should come up here and we’ll talk about it in the morning. The right way.”

He’s smiling slightly and maybe  _ this _ is the most frustrating thing, that ghost of a smile. Dex would do too much to see that smile. “So you’re saying—”

“I’m saying, maybe I do like you like that, okay? Just get your ass up here, Nurse, I’m tired.”

____________

They don’t fit. Nursey’s elbow is bony into Dex’s stomach and apparently Dex’s feet are too cold, and they haven’t figured out how to share the blankets yet. He thinks they will. 

Nursey holds onto the neck of Dex’s shirt and Dex wraps his arm around Nursey’s waist and it feels like maybe something’s fallen into place. Dex focuses on the weight of Nursey’s hand, and the feel of his breath on his neck, and tucks it away for the morning. If he holds onto it, maybe someday he’ll find a way to tell Nursey how beautiful a thing this is. They’ll wake up freezing with half the blankets on the floor but he’s warm now, and Nursey’s here now, and it feels true as anything. 

________________________

**Author's Note:**

> haha I almost called this "the importance of being earnest" it was a close call
> 
> I got hit with the urge to do this out of nowhere so thanks for reading! this is my first NurseyDex fic, so please please lemme know what you think :)
> 
> I'm on tumblr! [come say hi!](https://ivecarvedawoodenheart.tumblr.com/)


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